The state everyone keeps ignoring by Markus Gibbons

Before anyone seriously entertains the fantasy of Greenland becoming the fifty first star on the flag, Republican lawmakers should probably look south, not north. Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory for more than a century, already sends its sons and daughters to fight in American wars, pays federal taxes, uses the dollar and lives under federal law, yet remains politically stranded. Its residents are citizens without voting representation in Congress and without a vote for president. That contradiction is not a technicality; it is a democratic embarrassment. Talking about annexing an icy island thousands of miles away while sidestepping the status of 3.2 million Americans is not bold geopolitics, it is escapism wrapped in campaign season noise. Puerto Rico is not a theoretical puzzle. It is a living, breathing community waiting for political adulthood, and it has waited long enough for excuses dressed up as prudence or patriotic caution tape.

Republicans often describe themselves as champions of democracy, equal treatment, and constitutional order. Those slogans ring hollow in San Juan. Puerto Rico has held multiple referendums and in the most recent votes a clear majority favored statehood. You can debate turnout rates or ballot wording, but you cannot pretend the question has never been asked or answered. Congress simply does not like the answer. Admitting Puerto Rico would mean two new senators and several representatives, none of whom are likely to be Republicans. So the island is kept in permanent limbo, governed but not fully represented, taxed in some ways but voiceless in the laws that shape its economy, shipping, and disaster aid. That is not federalism; it is convenience masquerading as principle, and voters can see the outline of hypocrisy from space. It is hard to preach liberty abroad while rationing it at home by design and delay.

Then comes the Greenland chatter, a surreal sideshow that treats geopolitics like a real estate auction. Buy it, brand it, plant the flag, declare victory. Never mind that Greenlanders are not shopping for new owners, or that the island already belongs to a NATO ally. The idea flatters a certain imperial nostalgia, a belief that America proves its strength by acquiring more land. Puerto Rico exposes the emptiness of that logic. Strength is not acreage. It is the willingness to grant equal rights to people who already live under your flag. It is boring, legally messy, and politically inconvenient, which is precisely why it matters. Empires collect territories. Democracies absorb citizens. Only one of those traditions is worth defending in the twenty first century. And only one honors the idea that consent, not conquest, is the source of legitimate power in any republic worth the name today or tomorrow.

Some Republicans argue that Puerto Rico is too poor, too indebted, or too culturally different to become a state. These are not policy arguments; they are excuses polished to sound respectable. The United States has admitted states that were bankrupt, rural, sparsely educated, and linguistically diverse. None were required to audition for perfection. Statehood is not a reward for wealth; it is the mechanism by which neglected places gain the tools to improve. Keeping Puerto Rico outside the club has helped create the very economic fragility critics now cite as justification for exclusion. It is a political closed loop dressed up as fiscal caution, and it has trapped generations in managed inequality. That is not conservative. It is cowardly administration of someone else’s stagnation. A party serious about opportunity would break that loop, not cite it as destiny written in budget spreadsheets and colonial footnotes forever convenient to ignore.

If Republicans want to be taken seriously when they talk about the future of the nation, they should start with the Americans already waiting at the door. Puerto Rico’s status is not a side issue; it is a moral audit. Either citizenship means equal voice, or it is a decorative label attached to permanent subordination. Fantasies about Arctic expansion are easy. They cost nothing, offend few donors, and never reach a vote. Justice for Puerto Rico requires legislation, courage, and the willingness to lose a few elections in order to win something larger: credibility. Until that choice is made, talk of new states is just noise, a cartographer’s doodle pretending to be destiny. The fifty first star is already waiting in the Caribbean, not under polar ice. Congress only has to admit it values voters more than tactics, rights more than party math, and reality more than stunts alone.